The moment I got the call to say that I was one of the 2021 ‘This Girl Can’ winners I couldn’t believe it! I had won?! At the time I had just finished writing up my scarily long dissertation To Do list and was feeling very overwhelmed. Was I going to be able to juggle training with my university work?

After some phone calls with my parents and friends I thought, you know what, go for it Meg! This is one of those once in a lifetime opportunities that just can’t be turned down can it?! So much to gain and nothing much to lose… possibly a few hours on my dissertation but that’s fineeeee (fingers crossed!)

I received the first day of the training plan on my birthday and naturally an essential day off was needed from university work, so I headed to the beach with my family! We decided to go to the Blue Pool at Broughton Bay, Swansea (amazing rock pool, give it a google). Getting in the water was initially a bit of a struggle. Even though I was wearing a wetsuit (not my birthday suit) it was still freezing! After eventually getting in by doing the counting down from 5 method, it was actually an amazing feeling to be in the sea again! I did a few strokes of breaststroke but the tide was going out and the currents were pretty bad so I just stuck to the shallows and the Blue Pool.

It is now T-7 days until my dissertation due date and I have just got back from my first swim post lockdown 3 and have honestly never felt better!! It was so refreshing! I had even slightly missed the walk back from the pool in my soggy kit (changing rooms are not yet open at my pool so I can’t wait to receive my new Dryrobe!).

Looking forward to continuing with the training and hopefully getting to meet the other girls too! 

I’ve done enough rambling on about swimming now, it’s time to get back to sweating over the big old dissertation problem!! 

Speak soon, 

Meg x

I promise the next blog will be less dissertation, more swimming sorry!!